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September 11, 2001 was an exceptionally clear autumn day here in upstate New York. I recall that as I walked to my office early that morning I felt the warmth of the sun on my back, even as the air still seemed a bit crisp. I remember looking up and admiring the patterns forming in the contrails of a bright silver jetliner as it flew overhead. What a beautiful day, I thought.
The hatred that became manifest that day has not been unique, as we know. In this piece I have placed the voices of the hijackers along with the voices of others whose hatred has resulted in the destruction of many lives or continues to cause many to fear for their lives. Among others, you will hear the voices of a white supremacist (sampled from a telephone hotline), a former Congressman, and three men who are called "reverend" and who presumably were ordained to share the Good News of God's love.
Poised against this cacophony of hatred the choir sings a prayer: Lord have mercy; Christ have mercy; Lord have mercy.
[Complete text and program notes.]
The sound clips used in this piece were first extensively cleaned up with Bias Sound Soap Pro, followed by the convolution of many sound files with each other in Bias Peak. Further processing of many of the sound clips was accomplished with plugins by GRM Tools and cyling74's pluggo in Digidesign's Pro Tools. The sound file manipulation and patterning of the "drum kit" in the closing section of the work was done with a custom MAX/MSP patch. Final assembly and mixdown was done in Pro Tools.
If you would like to perform this work, you can download a free copy of the score here.
You can obtain a performance CD of the digital sounds by contacting the composer at the email address given at the bottom of this page.
Or, click for an mp3 file (7.3 MB) of these digital sound tracks.
To obtain performance materials or for further information, contact: .